dence. He was well served, however-better than Mr. Mortiboy was-because his people liked him; but his staff were all of inferior capacity, and there was not one among them whom he could trust with aught beyond the routine business of the bank. The work, consequently, was sufficiently difficult at all times, and of late had been-owing to the issue of certain transactions-more arduous than ever. It was in the evening, when the desks were locked and the papers put by, that Mr. Melliship was able to breathe freely, and might fairly be said to live.

For many years he had looked forward to the time when his son Frank should be able to take his place, and carry on the business of the bank. That time had now come. Frank's education at Harrow and Cambridge was finished, and young Melliship had returned home-though with no great amount of distinction-and was ready, as soon as his father should propose it, to begin the preliminary course of bank training which was to fit him for the work of his life. But, strangely enough, his father as yet had made no sign; and though all the world knew that Frank was to become a partner, his days were idle, and, against his will, spent chiefly in shooting and hunting.

Nor was this all. Of late, a singular change had come over his father. Mr. Melliship, once the most genial and eventempered of men, was now uncertain in his moods, fitful and capricious. The old expansiveness of his character seemed to be gone; and he had ceased to take his old interest in those things which had been formerly his chief topic of conversation.

Frank felt-what both he and his sister were somehow afraid of saying openly—that his father's character had undergone some sort of deterioration. How and why, he was unable to guess. Only Dr. Kerby knew, what we know, that in his overworked head were the seeds of that most subtle and dangerous disease-paralysis of the brain.

The change showed itself in many ways. Mr. Melliship had been a great giver of dinners. To sit at the head of his own table, feeling himself in culture, intellect, and—it must not be forgotten-in personal appearance, the superior of his usual guests, was an infinite pleasure to this handsome and stately man. He had some acquaintance-such acquaintance as men in the country reckon no small distinction-among literary men, and could invite a lion of lesser repute to stay with him. The lion would roar at his dinners. And he had

friends on the Continent who sent him visitors. So that Mr. Melliship had opportunities of calling together his friends to meet distinguished foreigners, and to hear him converse with them which he could do fluently-in French and Italian. And he used to patronise artists, and invite them to stay with him. Moreover, it was whispered that he had written papers for what were vaguely called "the Quarterlies "-though to this he never confessed. He was a special friend of the rector by reason chiefly of this culture he had acquired, which sat so gracefully upon him. The squirearchy of the neighbourhood regarded him as an ornament to their society; and by all men, in all classes, Mr. Melliship was spoken well of: by all men but one-his brother-in-law, the man who had married his sister. Ready-money Mortiboy had called him hard names for twenty years.

But now the hospitalities at the bank were contracted; fewer visitors came from town, and no dinners were given: To all Frank's inquiries of his sister, he could get no satisfactory answer, save that things were really changed, and that his father's old serenity was gone, to give way to fits of taciturnity and a habit of retreating to the study, sacred to his own privacy since the birth of his children.

The

This night, at dinner, he was more silent than ever. talk, however, such as it was, was chiefly carried on by Mr. Melliship himself, in a jerky manner, and with an evident effort.

He sent away his plate almost 'untouched, but swallowed bumper after bumper of Madeira-a new thing for him to do. Frank and Kate observed it with silent consternation. Then he broke upon the little chatter of his wife with a sudden and disagreeable laugh.

"The most absurd thing," he said, "really the most laughable thing I actually went to the funeral to-day in coloured trousers!"

"Why, my dear," exclaimed the wife, "it will be town talk!"

"I can't help it. I forgot entirely that I was not dressed. It was certainly the most absurd mistake I ever made."

Then he lapsed again into silence; while Frank-on whom a very uneasy feeling had fallen-hastened to relate stories of absent-minded men, and how they put themselves into ridiculous positions. But his father took no notice.

Frank noticed, with relief, that he drank very little wine

after dinner; and he proposed, almost immediately after his mother and sister had retired, that they should go upstairs for tea.

Mr. Melliship rose at once, and led the way; but turning back, as if he recollected something, he sat down again.

"There was something I wanted to say, Frank-what was it? Yes-yes; I have not been altogether well for some little time."

"So I have observed, sir. Can I not do something to help you at the bank-assist you in some way ?"

'No, my dear boy-no-not just yet. But in a few days I hope to get everything settled-everything arranged for your joining me. And my own-Yes, if things turn out so. suppose they do not ?"

Then he relapsed into silence again.

But

"Come, father, we will hope they will turn out all right. Why should they not? Let us go and have some tea, and a little music.' ""

Mr. Melliship laughed.

"Yes; tea, and a little music. So we wind up the day, and ease our cares. 'Gratior it dies.' Which of them was it -I think there was one- -who had soft music played while his veins were opened in a bath ?"

"Good heavens! I don't know," said Frank, looking at his father anxiously. "But come upstairs."

Mr. Melliship took his tea-cup, and sat in his chair, and began to talk for the first time for many weeks of the little ordinary matters of the day to his wife.

66

Play me my sonata, Kate," he said to his daughter, "while I tell you all the particulars of to-day's gloomy business." Frank watched him through the evening with a growing intensity of anxiety. These singular transitions from a gloomy taciturnity to an almost incoherent utterance, and from this back to the old easy, pleasant manner, alarmed him. And then his reference to affairs of business. What affairs? He had never inquired into them; he knew nothing about his father's pecuniary position. He had always been accustomed to the appearance of wealth in the domestic arrangements, to an ample allowance, to the "gratification of all reasonable wishes, and he had asked no more. It occurred to him now, for the first time, that these gloomy fits of his father's might have some solid cause in the affairs of the bank; and a shudder passed through him when he reflected-also for the first time

-that banks in other places got into difficulties, and why not the bank of Melliship & Co.

1

But Kate played on, and her mother, with her work in her hands, chattered, while the two men trembled. Are not women happy in this, that they seldom feel the blow before it falls? To men belong the long agony of anticipation, the despairing efforts at warding off the stroke of fate, the piquancy of remorse, the bitterness of regret, and the dull, dead pain of foreshadowing-that πрoσdóκia of which Paul speaks. These they bear in silence mostly; while their women wonder what has come over them, or are only vaguely distressed in mind with the fear that something has disagreed with the stomachs of those they love. For women have this very odd and inexplicable feeling about men, that their first thought of how to please them takes the form of something to eat, and their first thought of uneasiness flies back to something eaten. And on them, so unprepared, comes the blowheavy and cruel it may be, but not so heavy, not so cruel, not so destitute of comfort and compensation as it has appeared to the men who have suffered from it for so many months already.

About ten Mr. Melliship got up.

"Good night, children," he said. "I am going to my study. Where did I put the book I was reading ?" "What was it, papa ?" asked Kate. "The Memoirs of Lord Castlereagh.' Thank you, my dear, here it is. Have you read it, Frank? You shall have it, if you like, to-morrow. There is a very singular story about him. One night, as he was lying awake in a long, rambling room in an old house in Ireland, a fire burning at the other end of the room, he saw a child step out from the embers. The child, advancing towards him, grew larger and larger, and at last stood by his bedside, a giant in stature, glaring at him with the wild look of despair, wounded and bloody. He rose, seized his sword, and advanced upon the phantom. As he drew near, the shape retreated, growing smaller and smaller, till it became a child again, and vanished in the fire. You know he afterwards fell by his own hand. Do you think the figure appeared to him again? I have sometimes thought so."

He looked round the room in a strange, wistful went away without saying another word.

way, and

"I don't know, I'm sure," said Mrs. Melliship, as her

husband left the room, "why your father should tell us such a dreadful story; and to-day, too, after the funeral, when we wanted cheering up."

"I suppose," said Kate, "that his own thoughts have been turned all day in the direction of death, and that he cannot shake off the impression of the morning. Besides, you know how fond he was of poor Miss Mortiboy."

They did not know he had been closeted with Dr. Kerby while the service was being said at the church.

A ray of hope struck Frank. His father was not well. The funeral of his old friend had, as Kate put it, turned his thoughts in the direction of death.

"I will go," he said, "and see whether I can be of any use to my father. He is certainly not well to-night." "He ate no dinner at all," said his mother. will have something sent up.'

"See if he

The study at the bank was a room at the back of the house, approached from the main stairs by a long, dark passage. It was not the cnstom of any one in the house, save the master, ever to enter the room, except in the morning, when Kate herself superintended the dusting operations, and made it her care that none of the papers should be disturbed.

Mr. Melliship entered his room, and turned up his lamp. Sitting down before the fire, he opened the book he had been reading, and read over again the story of Lord Castlereagh's suicide. As he read, his face grew haggard, and his cheeks pinched.

Then he pushed the book from him with a sigh, and opened a cellaret at his elbow, whence he drew, with a little hesitation of manner, a bottle of brandy and a glass. As he was taking out the cork, he heard Frank's footstep in the passage. He had just time to put back the bottle, and to resume his seat, when Frank's knock at the door was followed by his entrance "Come in, my boy," said Mr. Melliship, "come in. come in. find me very busy."

That, Frank, you cannot be to-night.

You

And so, if that is

all, and I cannot help you, leave me to silence and work."

"But you are not well, my dear father."

"I am not, Frank," he said, sadly.

"Will you see a doctor to-morrow?"

"I have seen Dr. Kerby to-day; and he prescribes what I